José Raimundo Carvalho

Job Search, Conditional Treatment and Recidivism: The Employment Services for Ex-Offenders Program Reconsidered

Abstract The objective of this paper is to re-evaluate the effect of the 1985 “Employment Services for Ex-Offenders” (ESEO) program on recidivism in San Diego, Chicago and Boston. The initial group of program participants was split randomly in a control group and a treatment group. The actual treatment (mainly being job related counseling) only takes place conditional on finding a job and not having been arrested for those selected in the treatment group. We use interval-censored proportional hazard models for job search and recidivism time, where the latter model incorporates the conditional treatment effect, depending on covariates. We find that the effect of the program depends on location and age. The ESEO program reduces the risk of recidivism only for ex-inmates over the age of 27 in San Diego and Chicago and over the age of 36 in Boston, but increases the risk of recidivism for the other ex-inmates in the treatment group.

Idleness, returns to education and child labor

Although recent trends about child labor are positive, see ILO (2006), there still are important shortcomings which require further investigation. Among them, the exclusion of the category “idle children” (those who neither work nor study) from past studies, as well as the lack of reliable information on returns to education are two significant omissions. By using a data base that contains details on idle children and a proxy for the returns to education, we find evidence that confirms traditional findings both with regard to the strong positive effect of parental background and to the positive relationship between the number of children in the household and child labor. On the other hand, our estimates point out new insights, such as the great regional variation of estimates and the fact that the Body Mass Index effect is positive. Finally, we suggest a new perspective on the issue of “street children” through the analysis of the category of “idle children”

Zika virus incidence, preventive and reproductive behaviors: Correlates from new survey data

ABSTRACT During the outbreak of the Zika virus, Brazilian health authorities recommended that pregnant women take meticulous precaution to avoid mosquito bites and that women in general use contraceptive methods to postpone/delay pregnancies. In this article, we present new estimates on the Zika virus incidence, its correlates and preventive behaviors in the Northeast of Brazil, where the outbreak initiated, using survey data collected between March 30th and June 3rd of 2016. The target population were women aged 15–49 in the capital cities of the nine states of the Northeast region of Brazil. We find that more educated women were less likely to report suffering from Zika (or its symptoms) and more likely to report having taken precaution against Zika, such as having used long and light‐colored clothes, having used mosquito repellent or insecticides, having used mosquito protective screens or kept windows closed, and having dumped standing water where mosquitoes can breed. In addition, more educated women were more likely to report being informed about the association between Zika and microcephaly and to avoid pregnancy in the last 12 months. Finally, we also find that women who reported experiencing sexual domestic violence in the last 12 months were more likely to report suffering from Zika.

Regional Labor Market Differences in Brazil and Search Frictions: Some Structural Estimates

We estimate an equilibrium job search model for six metropolitan areas located in different regions of Brazil. Two mechanisms of wage determination are considered: wage posting by monopsony firms and Nash bilateral bargaining. In order to estimate the model, we use the non-parametric method developed by Bontemps, Robin, & van den Berg [2000. Equilibrium search with continuous productivity dispersion: Theory and nonparametric estimation. International Economic Review, 41(2), 305-358]. There is significant heterogeneity among the estimated structural parameters for these regions. We succeed in rationalizing some well-known regional differences in wages, unemployment rates and productivity prevalent in Brazilian labor markets, thus offering new interpretations. Metropolitan regions in the Northeast have much lower λ0 (arrival rate of wage offers for unemployed workers) andλ1 (arrival rate of wage offers for employed workers) vis a vis areas in the South or Southeast regions. This is a new, and much more precise, result worth considering on the regional inequality debate in Brazil. Regional inequality in wages, besides being an outcome of its regional human capital distribution, can be rationalized as inequality of search frictions brought by differences inλ1. We found a key (indirect) role for search frictions when analysing productivity differences as well. Since search frictions impact simultaneously on monopsony power as well as on productivity, in order to understand better regional productivity differences we must deepen our analysis on how these structural parameters are differentiated by regions. Labor market frictions add important insights into the regional debate, something not captured by more traditional econometric reduced form approaches.

Introdução a ''diferencial de salários no Brasil''

Este numero especial da Revista Brasileira de Economia reune seis artigos emṕiricos sobre o tema do diferencial de salarios no Brasil. Os artigos sao diversos no que diz respeito as causas dos diferencias de salarios, metodologias utilizadas e prescricoes de poĺiticas publicas. Algumas posśiveis causas citadas sao a filiacao industrial, discriminacao racial, nivel de educacao e informalidade no mercado de trabalho. Apesar da diversidade dos artigos no que diz respeito aos temas, ha uma nitida uniformidade em relacao ao nivel de agregacao de analise escolhido: dados microeconomicos. As sugestoes de poĺiticas vao desde uma reorientacao do investimento publico em educacao, passando por uma proposta de poĺitica anti-discriminatoria com preocupacao regional, ate uma rediscussao do aspecto da informalidade no mercado de trabalho. Depois de comentar brevemente cada artigo, eu ofereco algumas conclusoes.